Fracking

Editor’s Note: The successful Irish struggle against fracking by multi-national gas company Tamboran offers key insights on community power building for anti-extraction movements across the world.The Australian corporation paints its international natural gas projects as ‘green’ with words like “Net Zero CO2 Energy Transition”. But people in the Beetaloo Basin in Australia and Leitrim in Ireland don’t fall for their lies. Read about how local people, farmers, fishers and artists - deeply intertwined with their land - unite to fight for what they hold dear: rivers and streams, peat lands and hills, villages and work on the land. ...

By Frédéric Moreau In memory of Stuart Scott Each year while winter is coming, my compatriots, whom have already been told to turn off the tap when brushing their teeth, receive a letter from their electricity supplier urging them to turn down the heat and turn off unnecessary lights in case of a cold snap in order to prevent an overload of the grid and a possible blackout. At the same time the French government, appropriately taking on the role of advertiser for the national car manufacturers in which it holds shares¹, is promoting electric cars more and more actively. Even though electric vehicles (EV) have existed since the end of the 19th century (the very first EV prototype dates back to 1834). ...

Editor’s note: From the 15th to the 22th of November, in different countries, the Glasgow Agreement is articulating mobilizations, protests and blocks against one of the biggest oil & gas companies in the world: Total. This story first appeared in Common Dreams. By João Camargo The social alliance to take on global capitalism must be global, radical, popular, tactically, and strategically focused, while at the same time flexible and imaginative. Is climate collapse close to being averted? How close are we to winning? Is the climate justice movement organized to win? Are current strategies and tactics enough? What else do we need to try and how fast? The Glasgow Agreement, People’s Climate Commitment, is a global platform of grassroots and social movements for climate justice. It is planning on going after French multinational Total simultaneously all around the world this November, in an action called Collapse Total, and organising climate justice caravans in all continents next Spring. ...

Opponents in Pennsylvania and New Jersey cheer “cancellation of this unneeded, dangerous fracked gas pipeline.” This article originally appeared in Common Dreams By Jessica Corbett Environmental and public health advocates on Monday celebrated the demise of a proposed fracked gas pipeline across Pennsylvania and New Jersey after PennEast decided to cease development because of difficulties acquiring certain state permits. “Today, water, the environment, and people spoke louder than fossil fuels.” —Jim Waltman, The Watershed Institute ...

Shale Must Fall: Global day of climate actions uniting sites of extraction in the Global South and beyond with their counterparts of consumption in the Global North. Friday Dec. 11th, on the eve of the 5th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a diverse group of environmental movements from 20 different countries are mobilizing together to bring visibility to the environmental destruction of fracking. The movement is mobilizing to highlight the damage caused by European multinationals that do abroad what they are banned from doing at home (in this case, fracking) with the complicity of their governments that subsidize the industry. ...

Reporting from amidst fields of fracking wells in Colorado, Trinity La Fay writes about the conscious experience of being in relationship to the place she lives, and the disconnect between people and land needed to maintain the destruction. Experience Is Not An Abstraction by Trinity La Fey On the Colorado Rising website, the maps of oil and gas rigs light up the area just above where I live, past my friend’s house halfway up the state, all the way up and out along the plain in a great sweep. Like some demented statistical X, the active wells appear in a sea of blue dots: the abandoned wells. Combined, they swarm completely around the jagged Rocky Mountains, a rising, desperate sea of exploitation. ...

This article describes how the problems the oil industry are facing could be capitalized on by activists, particularly in light of reduced takeaway capacity from DAPL shutting down and the new Washington state l aw taking effect in 2020. Acknowledgement and thanks from DGR to strategic thinkers and activists everywhere. Bakken drillers may struggle to develop growth in oil production if they run into transportation bottlenecks. Due to the volatility of this substance, especially in transport, there is a new law (in Washington state) taking effect in 2020: oil being transported via rail car must have vapor pressure under a specific threshold. The aim is to reduce the risk of explosion, derailments and harm to human life. ...

February 7th updates from Unist’ot’enCamp and Gidimten: The RCMP raid continues today as militarized, heavily-armed police backed up with K9 dogs, heavy equipment, and helicopters move further into Unist’ot’en territory. As we write this federal police are currently raiding the Gidimt’en checkpoint at 44km. 6:15pm: We are hearing that 30 RCMP are surrounding #Wetsuwetsuweten Hereditary Chiefs and supporters at 27KM who have blocked the road. Among them, Dini’ze Smogelgem, Dini’ze Dsta’hyl, and Tsake’ze Sleydo’.Everything is quiet at @Gidimten checkpoint. Those in the cabin no longer see or hear police. It seems like the majority of the force has headed out and at least 15 RCMP have headed to 27km. The tower is still standing. The road is still blocked.Denzel Sutherland-Wilson from the Gitxsan nation was arrested and removed from @Gidimten tower earlier today. Only those in Chief Woos’ cabin remain. The Gitxsan are the oldest allies of the #Wetsuweten. ...

Written and photographed by Justin McAffee On a warm late-summer day, an old friend and I drove down some 50 miles of gravel road through a remote part of Nevada’s Tule Desert. We spotted a flock of golden eagles, and one even landed on a nearby Joshua Tree. The moment was magical. Yet the moment was fleeting as we looked at the overlay map of parcels the BLM would be selling to oil companies for pennies on the dollar, right where we stood. ...

Today the Coastal Gaslink company will be negotiating with the Wet’suwet’en traditional leadership. They may potentially allow workers past the barrier at Unist’ot’en Camp to conduct “pre-construction” activities. However, the compliance with the temporary injunction is not a surrender on the part of the Wet’suwet’en. It was a tactical maneuver to gain advantage in the short term and prevent physical harm to members of the nation. The camp stands and the nation has no intention of allowing the pipeline to be built. ...